Manulife Financial Corp, Canada's biggest life insurer, said it's buying Cigna Corp's Taiwanese life insurance unit as it tries to expand in a market where it doubled its business in each of the past two years.
Cigna, which is selling the Taiwan business of its Connecticut General Life Insurance Co unit, is pulling out of life insurance in Taiwan to focus on direct marketing and fund businesses. The terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
"One of our key priorities is to further develop the significant customer relationships already established by Cigna," said Michael Huddart, general manager of Manulife Taiwan.
Cigna, the third-biggest US health insurer, is not the first foreign life insurer to sell its business in Taiwan. Axa Asia Pacific Holdings Ltd, the Asian unit of the biggest insurer, sold its Taiwan life insurance business to Aegon NV in October.
Taiwan slumped into its first recession in 25 years last quarter as the economy shrank 4.21 percent from a year earlier on falling overseas sales. The economy is expected to stay in decline until the middle of next year.
Cigna's Taiwan branch opened in 1990 and made its first profit -- NT$127 million (US$3.6 million) -- in 1998.
Manulife, which owns 51 percent of Manulife-Sinochem Life Insurance Co, Tuesday won a license from China to sell life insurance in Guangzhou to add to its business in Shanghai.
While French insurance giant AXA is to pull out of Taiwan's market, it's trying to expand its presence in Malaysia and Japan, Michel Pinault, managing director for Asia and the Pacific, said on Monday.
"We are pulling out of Taiwan, because it does not hold much interest for insurers," Pinault told a conference on Franco-Japanese exchanges.
"We prefer to approach China either directly or via Hong Kong," he added.
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